I'm the best at Jesus.

I have, for many moons, tinkered with the idea of becoming a religious sister, which I suppose is a story for a different time. I was recently talking to my spiritual director about something that was somehow related to the idea of religious life and made a comment to the effect of "But I have to be the best at everything because everything is a competition." It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment, but true nonetheless. (Yes, I grew up in a family of boys).

He replied "I don't think that attitude would work very well in novitiate."

Well. This caused some pause for personal reflection.

I try to be the best at Jesus.

 (How can you be the best at being in relationship with someone? I'm not really sure, but logic gets put to the side often enough in competition).

I try to be the holiest, the most prayerful, the most theologically informed, the most active in my faith, etc etc it goes on and on until I eventually hit a wall. Thinking about being in a novitiate, it kind of puts it in a different perspective because you are with other women who are there for the same reason as you: the Lord called and you answered, and that looks different for everyone. You have to respect and appreciate anyone who gives up so much for the Lord, no matter what their personality, spirituality, or work looks like.

I work in building full of men and women who know a lot more than me about this Jesus. They pray differently, they encounter the Lord differently, they study differently. The Lord speaks to them in different ways, they are passionate about different facets of the faith, and they have ideas and dreams and hopes for the Church.

The Lord, in His gentle and kind way, has been slowly revealing to me that you can't be the best at Jesus. There are many, many very faithful people whose spirituality looks a lot different than mine and that doesn't make them better or worse. Rather, their individuality shows the great love and mercy of our God, who knows each of us intimately, and speaks to us in languages and loves us in ways we can understand. We're all struggling to know the Lord and we'd be better off if we did it together.